"When I opened this book, I expected to learn a lot about Syria; I didn't expect to learn so much about the meaning of home. Individually, these are urgent stories, beautifully crafted in simple, elegant prose. Collectively, they are a powerful reflection on home, on Syria, and on the inner struggles of its diaspora. A must-read for anyone who has ever craved home."
"In this new offering, Pearlman pulls together reflections on the meaning of home as explored by over seventy contributors. The interviews vary in length, style, tone, and topic, but individual voices come through vividly as people relate their experiences and share their feelings.... These compelling testimonials deserve a wide audience."
"As much as writing about prison is writing about freedom, talking about exile is talking about home, lost ones as well as newly found ones. This book shows us Syrians, scattered across so many countries, struggling to own the world. It is a book about journeys, loss, and change, but also about settling down and emancipation. Many Syrians opened their hearts to the author of We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled. In The Home I Worked to Make, Wendy Pearlman again guides us through their stories in simple and elegant language, with an accessible and lucid style, and her characteristic touch of humanity. This is a book for everyone in this progressively Syrianized world."
"This moving account from political scientist Pearlman... is a haunting rumination on what it means to belong somewhere."
"Wendy Pearlman gives us the chance to get the story from the source: refugees themselves. Her book is an engaging read from start to finish, humanizing so many who have been dehumanized. These stories are an important reminder about how we should be treating refugees who come into our countries. By working together, we create a better environment for all of us, but by refusing to show compassion, we create a darker, more challenging world. The Syrians who have come to our countries have so much to offer; they make our societies even better because they're in it. Sadly for Syria, the loss of these incredible people is our gain—if we let it be."
"The Home I Worked to Make is an absolutely vital book, unflinching in its commitment to the testimony of people much of the privileged world has chosen to forget. In an effort to explore a central question of twenty-first-century life—when one’s home is lost, what takes its place? —Wendy Pearlman turns to the insights and experiences of displaced and exiled Syrians, people who have gone through this turmoil first-hand. The result is a compendium of oral histories at once honest, instructive and devastating, collected through the tireless efforts of one of the most intellectually and morally astute thinkers working today."
★ 2024-05-04
A collection of interviews with Syrian refugees about their conceptions of home.
When Pearlman, author of We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled, began interviewing Syrian refugees in 2011, she thought she was going to write about the Arab Spring. When the theme of home emerged from her conversations with more than 500 participants, she began to seek deeper truths. “Commentators have analyzed the Syrian war through lenses such as protest, violence, geopolitics, sectarianism, extremism, and refugee crisis,” she writes. “Fewer have considered what Syrians’ extraordinary experiences can teach us about something so commonplace that it touches every human life: home.” Pearlman’s inquiry leads to a set of stunningly diverse stories that paint a picture of not only the traumatic displacement of the Syrian diaspora, but also the profundity with which Syrians approach their exile from their country. In one story, a gay refugee defines home as a place where he can be himself. After a rocky start in Trogen, Germany, one refugee’s insistence on being helpful to his new community resulted in a loving relationship with a German woman who insisted that he call her “Oma,” the German word for grandmother. In Turkey, a devastating earthquake helped a Syrian Australian man realize the depth of care he could expect from his newfound Australian community. In another moving story, a doctor chronicles a life-changing experience in Khartoum, Sudan, that reconnected her with her faith. Pearlman weaves these tales together beautifully, artfully teasing out their commonalities, complexities, and contradictions. No matter how dark the content, the author effectively centers the voices of refugees, drawing unexpected and incisive conclusions from her rich data. Pearlman includes a detailed chronology that runs up to August 2023.
A stunningly curated text that “strikes at the core of what it means to exist as a person in the world.
